Policy, Politics, and Governance
Behind the Push for Licensure Reform: How Beliefs About the Teaching Profession Unite and Divide Coalitions
A long history of scholarship on teacher professionalism documents how different narratives about teaching animate education policy and practice. We bridge the Advocacy Coalition Framework with institutional logics to examine how beliefs about teaching unite and divide a state-level coalition… more →
High Turnover with Low Accountability: Local School Board Elections in 16 States
We analyze the most comprehensive dataset on U.S. school board elections. We find that nearly half of races go uncontested and that incumbents are reelected more than 80 percent of the time when they run. Because many incumbents retire instead of running for another term, however, turnover is… more →
Portraying Governance: Demographic Misalignment in University Board Representation
Higher education governing boards are important bodies with far-reaching powers over the institutions they oversee. Yet little is known about individual board members, how the composition of boards varies across institutions, or whether boards are at all representative of their institutional… more →
Deeper Roots Before the Storm: Utilizing Machine Learning to Alert School Districts of Permanent School Closures
The increasing rate of permanent school closures in U.S. public school districts presents unprecedented challenges for administrators and communities alike. This study develops an early-warning indicator model to predict mass closure events - defined as a district closing at least 10% of its… more →
Recent Immigration Raids Increased Student Absences
Local immigration raids expanded dramatically across the U.S. during the first two months of 2025. Anecdotal accounts suggest that these raids increased student absences from schools because parents fear being separated from their children. This study evaluates this claim using a daily times… more →
The Politics of Commencement Speakers: Organizational Contexts of Speech on College Campuses, 1989–2024
Conflicts over the politics of speech have been a persistent challenge in U.S. higher education. Public narratives portray universities as antagonistic toward conservative speakers, yet empirical evidence remains limited. To address this gap, we analyze the political orientations of 1,875… more →
The Impact of School District Turnaround on Postsecondary Outcomes: Evidence from Lawrence, Massachusetts
Limited research examines the impact of accountability interventions on outcomes beyond test-based measures of short-term academic achievement. We examine the effects of the 2012 state takeover and districtwide turnaround of Massachusetts’ Lawrence Public Schools—a district serving a majority-… more →
School Choice and Household Participation in School District Politics
We examine whether policies that enable families to opt out of locally provided public services are associated with reduced political participation. Our study is focused on two types of school choice policy in Michigan: inter-district choice and charter schools. Do parents who send their… more →
From Population Growth to Demographic Scarcity: Emerging Challenges to Global Primary Education Provision in the Twenty-first Century
Demographic pressures are reshaping the challenges faced by primary education systems around the world in ways that carry significant implications for the landscape of global educational inequality. We first demonstrate highly disequalizing demographic pressures on the world's educational… more →
New Places, New Players, a New Politics of Education
In the last decade, many political conflicts over K-12 education in the United States have increasingly divided along party lines. While it may seem like this development represents a sudden and surprising departure from a long-standing tradition of bipartisanship, I argue that the politics of… more →
Education Governance and Race: An Analysis of School Board Discourse Using Large Language Models
Despite growing attention to school boards, it is unclear whether they primarily operate as bureaucratic forums, policy-making bodies, or arenas for contentious debate—particularly on issues of race. Recent controversies suggest increasing public engagement and conflict, but little evidence… more →
What are Promises Made of? The Design of Local College Affordability Programs
U.S. postsecondary education is populated by hundreds of state and local affordability initiatives sometimes referred to as “Promise programs”, many of which claim to make college free or tuition-free. These programs vary tremendously in terms of what they provide, where they can be used, and… more →
Heterogeneous Effects of Closing the Digital Divide During COVID-19 on Student Engagement and Achievement
Equitably expanding technology access among K-12 students has long been viewed as critical for equalizing educational opportunities. But these interventions may influence students’ academic outcomes in unexpected ways. Prior research suggests key technological resources, like broadband Internet… more →
Education and the Gender Voting Gap
Women in the United States have outpaced men in both voter participation and educational attainment in recent decades. Since education is closely tied to political participation, we consider these trends in tandem and assess how much of the gender gap in voting is attributable to differences in… more →
Backlash? Schooling Reassignments and the Politics of School Desegregation
School desegregation efforts often spark fierce political backlash. This dissent is typically ascribed to families’ dissatisfaction with the changes in schooling assignments required to achieve desegregation aims. In this paper we use the empirical context of the Wake County Public School System… more →
The Peer Effects of Grade Retention
We study the peer effects of grade retention in the context of Indiana’s statewide third-grade retention policy. When a retention occurs, it changes the peer group for two cohorts: rising fourth graders who lose a peer and rising third graders who gain a peer. We identify peer effects in both… more →
Return on Investment or Ripoff? Examining the Returns to New Master’s Degree Programs
Universities have created more than 14,000 new master’s degree programs in the last two decades, and much of this is likely driven by an effort to increase institutional revenues during challenging financial times. But this expansion in graduate education creates a risk that these new programs… more →
State Intervention and Racialized Policy Aversion in Michigan's Black School Districts
For the past thirty years, Michigan has used Emergency Management (EM) and receiverships to solve city and school finance issues. The impact of these state intervention policies has been highly publicized and has led to institutional distrust among black citizens in urban communities —with the… more →
Curricular-Credential Decoupling: How Schools Respond to Career and Technical Education Policy
This study examines College and Career Readiness (CCR) policy implementation through the lens of decoupling. We investigate how high schools have jointly implemented Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Industry-Based Certifications (IBCs), and whether there is evidence of curricular-… more →
In the Wake of Dobbs: The Effect of State Abortion Bans on Women's College Choices
This paper studies the impact of state reproductive rights laws on women’s human capital decisions after the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022). Using data from the Common App, the undergraduate college… more →